Sun returns to Inuvik after a month of total darkness in Canadian Arctic town

Inuvik festival

Record News Services

Children are silhouetted as they play in front of a giant bonfire during the 20th annual Sunrise festival in Inuvik, N.W.T. in 2008. The festival welcomes the return of the sun after the long darkness of mid-winter.

After enduring more than a month of total darkness near the top of the world, hundreds of residents on the weekend celebrated the return of a precious but all-too brief 41 minutes of sunlight with the 25th annual Sunrise Festival.

Many in the N.W.T. town of 3,000 opened their arms and let down their hair, with a gigantic bonfire and fireworks display that was almost warm enough to make one forget the bitter Arctic weather.

The bonfire, fuelled by Christmas trees and more than 1,000 wood pallets, took place the night before the sun returned. As much as it was a welcoming back of the sun, it was a goodbye to the total darkness.

Jimmy Ruttan, 24, said that when the sun comes back, it’s like a reward for enduring the month without it.

“To me it means new beginning, time for fun and working off the holiday pounds by getting back outside,” said Ruttan, a youth outreach worker who moved to Inuvik in 2008 from Haley Station, Ont.

Ruttan said that once the sun returns, people resume outdoor recreational activities, despite temperatures of -30 C and lower.

“This is kind of like our New Year celebration. The sun comes back with ferocity and we welcome it,” he said.

The final 46 minutes of sunlight of 2012 was on Dec. 4. The sun set over the Mackenzie River and the Beaufort Delta community for the last time, and for the next 31 days, perpetual darkness.

By Jan. 12, a week after the first appearance of the sun, the town will have two hours, 24 minutes of sunlight; by the last day of January just over five-and-a-half hours.

When the May long weekend rolls around, the sun will remain in the sky around the clock until July 18 — a full 55 days.